Setting the Olympic Stage for Cultural Programming: An Examination of Exercises in Soft Power and Instances of Institutional Entrepreneurship during London 2012 Tiffany Bourgeois Cultural Management: Science and Education 8 No. 1 (2024) https://doi.org/10.30819/cmse.8-1.01     pp: 9-26     2024-06-28

Setting the Olympic Stage for Cultural Programming: An Examination of Exercises

Soft power, institutional entrepreneurship, Olympics, London 2012, Arts Festival Cite: APA    BibTeX

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Abstract
This article argues the cultural programming of the Olympics is an exercise in soft power and it illumina-tes instances of institutional entrepreneurship using London 2012 as a case. Specifically, it reviews and critiques Joseph Nye’s concept using explicit Olympic examples. The article highlights new organizational formats using work by Steve Maguire, Cynthia Hardy and Thomas Lawrence to examine the structure of the London Olympic Organizing Committee, creation of the opening ceremony, and the World Shake-speare Festival. Using case study methodology, it explores how the International Olympic Committee and local organizing committee engaged with institutional entrepreneurship during the London 2012 Olympics to create new structures for the organizing committee and implement the cultural program-ming to exercise soft power. Ultimately, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralym-pic Games’ new, hybrid public-private structure functioned as a resource for the production and imple-mentation of the Games because it impacted autonomy and accountability, which influenced the com-mittee’s ability to exercise soft power. This work emphasizes how institutional entrepreneurship activi-ties occurs within large organizations like the International Olympic Committee highlights how institu-tions consistently change to reflect the needs of stakeholders, but the goals of the Olympic Games re-main the same.

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